In recent years the Panthers had seemingly gained a reputation for blowing close games. Football teams blowing close games isn’t exactly a new phenomenon, but Pitt has seemingly made it an art form in recent times. The current era of “Pitting”, meaning Pitt’s tendency to blow games in a painful fashion at a higher than normal rate, began late in the Dave Wannstedt era.

Specifically, it was late in the 2009 season when Pitt lost close games to WVU and Cincinnati to squander a chance to win the Big East and go to the Sugar Bowl. Since then, most seasons have featured at least one egregious example of Pitt failing to close out a big game. The next year, the Panthers lost by 2 to UConn after leading late, preventing them from going to a BCS bowl for the 2^nd straight year. In Todd Graham’s only season as Pitt Head Coach, the Panthers wasted a big lead against Iowa in a 4-point loss. When playing at Notre Dame in 2012, they blew a 14-point lead before losing in Overtime. When Duke came to town in 2014, the Panthers lost in Overtime after missing what would have been a game-winning field goal at the end of regulation.

While painful losses happen to every team from time to time, Pitt has seemed to experience more than their fair share of them in recent years. While this seems to be the case, there could be confirmation bias at work. Given the painfulness of some of these games, they may tend to stick in our mind more. It also seems as though there haven’t been as many of these painful losses since Pat Narduzzi took over. Do the statistics actually show this to be the case though? If so, is it the fault of the previous coaching staffs, the associated chaos, something else, or just the result of bad luck?

 

...